"The smug, high-end Washington press corps" are just another sub-group of the elites

i posted a while back on the ethics of ken silverstein's undercover gig to gather information about washington lobbying and public relations firms that appeared in the recent harper's... i opined at the time that it would be completely impossible for silverstein to have gotten the information he was able to obtain by any other means... here silverstein addresses the ethics issue, shares an identical opinion, and offers a few observations on the current state of our esteemed media...

Today ... it's almost impossible to imagine a mainstream media outlet undertaking a major undercover investigation.

[...]

The decline of undercover reporting — and of investigative reporting in general — also reflects, in part, the increasing conservatism and cautiousness of the media, especially the smug, high-end Washington press corps. As reporters have grown more socially prominent during the last several decades, they've become part of the very power structure that they're supposed to be tracking and scrutinizing.

[...]

Yes, undercover reporting should be used sparingly, and there are legitimate arguments to be had about when it is fair or appropriate. But I'm confident my use of it in this case was legitimate. There was a significant public interest involved, particularly given Congress' as-yet-unfulfilled promise to crack down on lobbyists in the aftermath of the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Could I have extracted the same information and insight with more conventional journalistic methods? Impossible.

Based on the number of interview requests I've had, and the steady stream of positive e-mails I've received, I'd wager that the general public is decidedly more supportive of undercover reporting than the Washington media establishment. One person who heard me talking about the story in a TV interview wrote to urge that I never apologize for "misrepresenting yourself to a pack of thugs … especially when misrepresentation is their own stock in trade!"

i, for one, am grateful that someone like silverstein is on the job...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet